Before you start:

• Immediately wipe off your dog with paper towels to remove skunk spray that hasn’t soaked in yet.
• Check their eyes. Our dog took a hit to his face only and his eyes are still red 24 hours later. Most sites say call your Vet if this has happened. A good friend of ours is a Vet and when we called, she told us you can rinse their eyes with saline solution if you have an eye dropper, but it doesn’t do very much. Other sites recommended olive oil as it helps to protect their eyes during cleaning as well.
  
• Tomato juice, vinegar or mouthwash isn’t effective as it only masks the odour and doesn’t dissolve and neutralize the oily skunk spray.
• If you can’t bath them outside, then try to use a room with a window. Don’t let them rub up against any furniture / rugs in your home as you may never get the odor out.
• Change into old clothes and use old towels. Don’t let them near their beds or you may have to throw them out.
• If you plan on using a commercial formula, there seems to be differing advice on what to do. One site recommended keeping the fur wet until the product can be applied. The product our friend (the Vet) gave us, said not to wet the dog first.
• One site recommended only wetting / washing the affected areas as washing the entire dog can actually spread the spray through their coat. I partially followed this advice, as I washed the entire dog the second time around to make sure I caught any residual spray.

Washing the Dog

Paul Krebaum, a chemist, invented this formula for de-skunking a dog.  The amount shown below will work for a small dog or a partial area of a larger dog. Mix in an open bucket or bowl:

1 quart of  3% hydrogen peroxide (must be new and unopened to be effective)

¼ cup baking soda

1 teaspoon of strong liquid soap such as dish-washing detergent.

• Wet your dog and thoroughly massage the solution into the coat.  Be sure to keep the mixture out of the dogs eyes, nose and mouth.  If it is necessary to apply it to the dogs face, very carefully use a washcloth or a sponge.  Leave on for 20 minutes, then rinse with lukewarm water.
• Wash your dog at least twice in the solution, paying special attention to the effected areas. Rinse thoroughly between applications. Use an old wash cloth to make sure the oil is removed from the dog’s face – hold their eyes closed to keep the solution from further irritating their eyes.
• After two washes, the odor should be noticeably reduced – if not, use a strong vinegar rinse (50 percent water to 50 percent vinegar), let it sit on your dog’s coat for 20 minutes then rinse well.

Words of Caution

• This mixture can be explosive, as it will fizz and creates pressure if it is enclosed in a sealed container, Be sure to only mix in an open container and do not try to store or cover it in any way.
• Do not get the mixture into the dog’s eyes, nose or mouth. I found the tip about using gloves after the first application and I can only imagine how it would feel to get this solution into a sensitive area on the face.

I will definitely be keeping these instructions, and the supplies, on hand for future incidents!

And so, from November of 2005 to March of 2009, I was a part time stay at home Mom. While that had its own set of unique challenges, I was a bit startled by my experience when I chose to return to the workforce full time. The single biggest shock that I received was overcoming the perception that I had lost my skills while I was out of the full time workforce.

There were several sites I found that were useful for helping me overcome this, the highlights of which are shown below.

During Your Leave Most sites highlight the importance of maintaining your network while you are away. If you are planning to return to a different career path, then choose volunteer or education opportunities which support your skills in that area. I also completed the educational requirements for my professional designations and maintained subscriptions to trade magazines, ensuring I was current with ongoing developments in my fields of consulting and project management. More tips on this can be found here:

Strategies for Moms Returning to the Workforce

Stay Marketable Article

Updating Your Resume I felt that ‘household management’ was a red flag for employers, particularly for the HR people who were screening resumes. If you are like many Moms and found it difficult to take the time to stay current in your job area, I like the idea of listing your skills in a functional format. On a lighter note, here is an extract from the introduction to a good post on this topic:

CNN recently published results of research done at Salary.com. It stated that “The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, the company concluded, and works at least 10 jobs. In order of hours spent on them per week, these are: housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist. By figuring out the median salaries for each position, and calculating the average number of hours worked at each, the firm came up with $138,095 — three percent higher than last year’s results.”

I also liked these articles:

Stay at Home Mom On Your Resume

Stay at Home Mom Needs to Explain…

Determining What Your Goals Are When I first started looking, I simply applied to jobs that were similar to the career that I left, hoping to gain a foot in the door that I could convert into more flexible opportunities at a later date. After a month of this, and a few interviews that solidified for me that it wasn’t what I wanted, I landed on starting my own business. There are non-traditional paths that can offer you flexibility, including freelancing and other options. If you choose to start your own business, I found the book The Boss of You a terrific reference about where to begin. If you plan to return to your previous employer, I found this site on negotiating work arrangements interesting .

Preparing for Interviews I was surprised by how nervous I was during interviews. Previously, I had virtually no issues with nerves during interviews or presentations and found that three years at home, primarily talking to toddlers, had taken a large bite out of my confidence. I wished I hadn’t just assumed that it would go well, or had practiced articulating my message about my “time off”.

Top Ten Interview Tips for Moms Returning to Work

Investigating Local Resources I found there were many US sites for Women to Network:

http://wcbn.4jobs.com/

http://www.youronramp.com/

http://www.womenatworknetwork.com/

In general, Canadian sites were neither as plentiful, nor as well resourced. There is however, a local Vancouver program coordinated by the Minerva Foundation,which is described as:

The Minerva Helping Women Work™ initiative is a unique career-mentoring program that supports highly-skilled and undervalued professional women who feel “boxed in” in their attempts to re-enter the workforce and provide economic security for their families.  The five-month program:
1. Takes up to 20 protégés (program participants) on a specific career-planning journey, delivered by a team of qualified professional career counselors, to improve their re-employment skills and define their goals.
2. Mentors offer protégés advice, direction, and contacts.  They are drawn from the business, academic, government and non-profit community.  These mentors help the protégé determine which positions are the best fit from a personal and industry outlook, and from a labour-market perspective.
3. Each protégé is partnered with a personal career coach who will guide and support the protégé for 8 weeks through the critical job-search process.

Here is hoping that one or more enterprising Canadian Mom(s) starts a good professional networking site and job board for Canadian women too!

Everything that I have learned about Social Media over the last few months indicates that open communication is meant to ultimately bring out the best in society and encourage people to honestly report and respond to information. If you don’t agree that a working Mom has difficulty attending to the peripheral things like planning kids parties, and that a good website or newsletter would help her out – then please have the courage to state why. Oh, and also please indicate whether you have kids and a husband that works long hours, because I’d love for you to spend a day in my shoes and not end up on Prozac.

I blogged about these sites because I know that my family and friends are in similar situations and thought they could help them out.

In the last day or so, I have encountered several incidents of unsolicited advice / judgement. From the lady who nastily advised a friend of mine at work that she should put her dish in the dishwasher – she thought it was still running – to the Mom who told my sister that her son’s bed-wetting problems could be magically resolved with a more active lifestyle (said Mom was not a Urologist or Pediatrician) – how about we try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and understand that the majority of people are doing the best they can with the time and energy that they have.

In my mind, comment streams on blogs are meant to promote discussion and engage readers in positive decision making. In life, or in blog land, if you don’t have anything nice to say……

At least I have the option to delete comments on my blog!